


Wouldn't It Be Nice

by solipsist



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: AU, Angst, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26099881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solipsist/pseuds/solipsist
Summary: Maybe it was better that Miles died.With Miles dead, there would be no Miles and his caring. Miles and how much he cared. He could afford to care. It was his happy ending, after all. Friend and lover under one roof. The death of Jeremy Blaire. The impending lawsuit. Look where it puts Waylon: refusing Waylon the dignity of death. He’s a thing to be pitied and sighed at.Miles who so proudly dragged Waylon from death into hell.Fucking Miles.
Kudos: 6





	Wouldn't It Be Nice

**Author's Note:**

> wow look at me taking a break from mental illness to post twice in one month

It’s the happiest ending anyone could have asked for and Waylon wants to slice his throat open.

Someone not-Waylon has been pulled from the floors of Mount Massive asylum. It’s a man, it’s a small animal, it’s weeping for those who have hurt it, it has nothing to come home to. And if Waylon has died as a lover in Eddie’s arms, not-Waylon envies him for that easy escape. not-Waylon has come home to a dead family. not-Waylon has seen Lisa die in a small hospital room. not-Waylon has repeated the life of Waylon in front of a hundred blank faces. not-Waylon is alone for the first time in his life. not-Waylon cries to himself in a body he doesn’t belong in. And nothing in the darkness reaches out to pet his head and wipe his tears. 

Everyone can tell not-Waylon isn’t really Waylon. not-Waylon can’t possibly guess how. He walks, he talks - he can scream and jump and run like Waylon can. But everyone can still tell. But everyone will still stare at Waylon’s body and sigh when not-Waylon answers and they stare on with a sad sort of look, missing Waylon. 

Voices of people who haven’t died yet come from the light underneath the door. not-Waylon wants to want to hate them. It’s not resentment, it’s not jealousy. It’s the loss of Waylon and it’s the robbery of not-Waylon’s happiness in the happy ending. Survivors have germinated, they’re moving on and ahead, and they’ve all got what not-Waylon doesn’t. He stays stagnant. He stays running behind. 

Phantom pain shoots through his arms, his chest. He sobs quietly to himself; there isn’t the comfort of anybody's warm body. And nothing in the darkness is with him. 

Everything Waylon had done, every kind action, to care for those alone, to love those who could not has been swallowed up by the sky. There is no memory. There are no choices. Everyone he has touched has died. Everything he has touched has forgotten. The universe has rewarded him appropriately with the body of a man who is gone. 

The death of Jeremy was supposed to be a good thing. 

It doesn't feel good. It didn't feel good watching bone and blood soar through the air. It didn't feel good knowing there's one last horrific deed Waylon is responsible for. It didn’t feel good when he was dragged away to a jeep. It didn’t feel good hearing Miles laugh about it.

The stark alone doesn't feel good. To never be loved, to never be touched, to never be wanted, to never be kissed again doesn't feel good. 

To cry alone in the guest room of those who pity him doesn't feel good.

And what is there to do? Leave and call more pity to himself? 

There’s a Star Trek episode Waylon can’t help be reminded of when a spider wriggles underneath a poster. 

Something about God. Or Gods. Or something like God. And the God offered everything to the ship. Peace, contentment, fruit and sheep aplenty. And yet the crew fights back. They defied God. They murdered God. Jim Kirk says man lives to claw his way to life. Man enjoys pain, man enjoys the fight, man enjoys woe. 

The spider is coaxed out. A magazine about global warming slides under its legs and it skitters out of the open window. How did everything go so right for everyone else? The spider crawls underneath the windowsill and sets to work building a web for a clutch of eggs. In three weeks, Waylon is going to watch as a thousand little black spiders float on the wind, looking for places to weave a web. 

And again - a planet with colonists. This time they were infected by the spores of a plant that continually fed happy chemicals to their brains. Spock and a woman fall in love and they are happy. Everyone is happy. Spock laughs. And again - Jim Kirk destroys the spores. And again - the moral is  _ paradise is not for man _ . 

Adam and Eve may have been cast out of paradise. 

_ But what about the rest of us?  
_ _ I didn’t eat the apple. _

Waylon isn’t sure that he wanted his tears to stop. Voices ( _ Shh! He’s sleeping! _ ) muffled by the wall ( _ Ah! _ ) stab Waylon through the ( _ You asshole! _ ) ears. And whatever more they want him to hear is remedied with Green Day streaming through one earbud. The other bud is broken.

Laughter from the other room.

Waylon shuffles out of his room for a glass of water. He should have brought his earbuds with him. If he turns on the disposal and shoves his hands in it, there’s a pretty good chance of dying. Waylon sniffs and doesn’t turn on the disposal and stick his hands in.    


The hospital bed was where he woke up. Drugged and in pain. Unsure of what was going on. Wishing he was dead. Hoping he was dead.   
If he could have closed his eyes, maybe it would’ve all faded away. If he tried hard enough, maybe he could’ve reached the light at the end of the tunnel. 

And then there was Miles. 

Miles and his caring. Miles and how much he cared. He could afford to care. It was his happy ending, after all. Friend and lover under one roof. The death of Jeremy Blaire. The impending lawsuit. Look where it puts Waylon: refusing Waylon the dignity of death. He’s a thing to be pitied and sighed at.

Miles who so proudly dragged Waylon from death into hell.

There was a man Waylon screamed at. Big, massive, on a mission to execute every living thing inside. The first time, Waylon’s body would not let him die. A survival instinct had him kick, scream, run, breathe, hide. The second time, he screams:  _ Let me die! Kill me! _ And the monster of man looks blankly at him. Perhaps he already knew Waylon is dead. He saw what everybody else did. Something that does not belong here.  _ Fuck you! Asshole!  _ And to Eddie, Waylon ran, because that is where the story reaches and that is where he will surely reach the climax of this tragedy. 

But the world is the same. Colors on a paintbrush do not change. The same settings he cannot leave, the same characters he cannot escape, the same choices to make over and over again. This tragedy sighs and folds back into a perfect circle, watching as the fool runs along for the end.

Waylon can see his own death now. A chest cracked open and blood from his mouth. Everyone’s staring and nobody says a word because this all happened a year ago. He’s shadow and paint on a wall.

He’s outlived his life. But the great tragedy rolls on for Waylon. 

Somewhere far away a therapist asks Waylon.

_ What do you want to do now? _


End file.
